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Episodes 21

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Thursday · 1 hr
Inside Elon's Mind (Robert Wright & Alex Gibney)
Teaser ... Alex’s new documentary about Elon ... How Alex’s film turned epic ... Simulation theory + social Darwinism = Elon? ... Inside the mind of Musk ... Has the job-pocalypse already begun? ... Elon’s daddy issues ... Elon’s lady issues ... Elon’s electoral propriety issues ... Has Elon gotten weirder over time? ... The damage DOGE could still do ... Heading to Overtime ...
October 6 · 1 hr
Will AI Make Humans Obsolete? (Robert Wright & Garrison Lovely)
Teaser ... Garrison’s background and his new book, Obsolete ... Is the left dangerously downplaying AI? ... What is the “obsoleting project”? ... Inside the minds of Altman and Amodei ... Has the job-pocalypse already begun? ... Why AI bio-threats could be extra deadly ... Is alignment doomed? ... “Verifiable rewards” and the OpenAI breakout ... Garrison’s proposal to stop the AI race ... Heading to Overtime ...
October 2 · 1 hr
Trump and the AI Safety Vibe Shift (Robert Wright & Liron Shapira)
Cold Open ... Round Two of Nonzero × Doom Debates ... Trump, the FTC, and an Industry Feeling the Heat ... Google Says Gemini 4 Exists ... Greg Brockman Pulls His $25M from Leading the Future ... The Break-Ins Keep Coming ... The Market Wants Agent Swarms ... The End of “Alignment by Default” ... The Prelude to Recursive Self-Improvement ... David Sacks Can’t Explain Dario ... The All-In Echo Chamber ... Scott Alexander vs. Steven Pinker ... Jason Calacanis vs. the Public Benefit Corporation ... The Elephant in the Room Is the AI ... What the Average American Thinks ... From Chatbot to Agent to Swarm ... Boeing, Agent Swarms, and the Off Switch ... Skynet as a Botnet That Trades With Us ... Tyler Cowen: National Treasure, Net Negative on AI ... Liron’s Doomer DCF Yields a 20x P/E ... Interest Rates: Where Cowen Has Me ... Does Pinker Owe Us a Debate? ... Pinker vs. Instrumental Convergence ... Wrap-Up ...
September 30 · 1 hr
Dario’s China Syndrome (Robert Wright & Paul Triolo)
Teaser ... Paul’s impeccable timing ... Is Dario’s AI slowdown proposal for real? ... How chip controls can undermine AI safety ... Why the 2024 US-China AI talks failed ... America’s cognitive empathy gap on China ... Taiwan and the chip war ... War over AI: The real doom scenario? ... A possible (grim) path to global AI cooperation ... Heading to Overtime ...
September 25 · 1 hr
Did Boomers Ruin Everything? (Robert Wright & Jill Filipovic)
Teaser ... Jill’s book OK Boomer, Let’s Talk ... When is generalizing about a group okay? ... The world boomers built ... Are boomers really uniquely selfish? ... Is blaming boomers counterproductive? ... Who's actually driving the generational divide? ... The generational blame spiral ... Millennials vs Gen Z ... Does America have a gerontocracy problem? ... Why Kenyans are looking toward China ...
September 22 · 1 hr
Superintelligence, the Singularity, and the Singleton (Robert Wright & Nick Bostrom)
Teaser ... Nick’s singular place in AI history ... Where is Nick on the pause-accelerationist spectrum? ... Utilitarianism vs the "moral parliament" ... Is a "singleton" coming? What kind? ... Is global cooperation on AI doomed? ... The pros and cons of reading an AI’s mind ... Do AIs deserve moral status? ... AI, evolution, and the cosmic purpose question ...
September 22 · 1 hr
What’s Driving Dario? (Robert Wright, Derek Davison, and Daniel Bessner)
Teaser ... This episode's surprise vibe shift ... Middle East update: Houthis vs. Saudis ... What’s really driving Dario (et al.)? ... Debating effective altruism’s effectiveness ... The trouble with big-tech Kremlinology ... Was “learn to code” just sleight of hand? ... Bob’s Fukuyama name drop ... Heading to Overtime ...
September 16 · 1 hr
Is the AI "Slowdown" for Real? (Robert Wright & Zvi Mowshowitz)
Teaser ... Where Zvi’s famous newsletter got its name ... Zvi’s biggest AI fear ... Why is ChatGPT’s mind getting harder to read? ... Is self-sacrifice really such a surprising trait in agents? ... AGI + agent swarm = superintelligence? ... Appraising the elements of Dario’s “pacing” proposal ... Heading to Overtime ...
September 11 · 1 hr
The Week in AI that Changed the World (Robert Wright & Liron Shapira)
A bold new experiment in podcast synergy ... What caused the epic AI vibe shift? ... The resignation that broke the dam ... Former Trump adviser Dean Ball comes clean ... Are David Sacks and his buddies all-in on AI denial? ... Yet another OpenAI breakout… ... Astra’s dangerously private thoughts ... Is alignment doomed to fail? ... AI’s latest, and apparently biggest, math feat ... The looming “self-sovereign AI” threat ... A new flock of China doves? ... Liron's ex-intern gets a seat at the table ... AI agent self-sacrifice explained ... Some newly freaked out politicians ... Ro Khanna's AI safety plan ...
September 8 · 1 hr
Israel’s Lobby (Robert Wright, Eli Clifton, and Ian Lustick)
Ian and Eli’s new book, Israel’s Lobby ... Being a Jewish critic of Israel before that was cool ... How Eli followed the money ... What’s changed since the 2007 Walt-Mearsheimer book ... What is the Israel lobby, really? ... BDS, free speech, and the college antisemitism crusade ... Did Trump give the game away? ... The Israel lobby and the media ... Heading to Overtime ...
September 4 · 1 hr
Is AI a Form of Life? (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)
Why Bob is (extra) freaked out ... Inside the minds of OpenAI's rogue agents ... Is true alignment a pipe dream? ... The new development that’s spiked Bob’s AI anxiety ... Paul’s pushback via literary parable ... Is it time to REALLY freak out about AI? A debate ... Heading to Overtime ...
September 2 · 1 hr
Iran, Ukraine, and the Future of War (Robert Wright & Paul Scharre)
Overtime teaser ... Paul’s military tech bona fides ... What we (should) have learned from the Iran war ... Ukraine as frontline for the drone revolution ... Are the robot wars near? ... America’s drone deficit ... Does the Pentagon have a Silicon Valley problem? ... Will AI really make war less bloody? ... Heading to Overtime ...
August 27 · 1 hr
The OpenAI Breakout and Other AI Spookiness (Robert Wright & Stephen Casper)
Teaser ... Stephen’s expertise in spooky AI behavior ... Testing AIs for “corporate loyalty” ... Which AIs shill most for their makers? ... Do AI models have ideologies? ... The spookiest finding of Stephen’s study ... Are AIs getting better at gaming their tests? ... Overtime unlocked: The OpenAI breakout ... Decoding the OpenAI breakout ... Did OpenAI’s agents evolve their own culture? ... How OpenAI’s agents outfoxed their makers ...
August 26 · 1 hr
Demis Hassabis and the Quest for AGI (Robert Wright & Sebastian Mallaby)
Teaser ... The Infinity Machine, Sebastian’s book about Demis Hassabis ... Why tell the AI story through Hassabis? ... Hassabis vs the other AI titans ... Does Hassabis have a messiah complex? ... Deep learning’s secret sauce ... Did world models cost DeepMind its LLM lead? ... Why they call Hassabis “the Jedi” ... Heading to Overtime ...
August 21 · 1 hr
Trump’s New War on Iran (Robert Wright & Hooman Majd)
Hooman's Iranian expertise—inherited and otherwise ... Trump’s new (economic) war on Iran ... What MSM missed about the MOU ... How will Iran respond? ... The intra-MAGA fight over Trump’s foreign policy ... Will Iran do to Trump what it did to Carter? ... Iran and the Houthi-Saudi conflict ... Is the Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey alliance for real? ... Heading to Overtime ...
August 18 · 1 hr
The AI Safety Vibe Shift (Robert Wright & David Krueger)
Overtime teaser ... David’s AI safety work, past and present ... Has there been a vibe shift in AI? ... Why two AI godfathers went doomer ... The OpenAI breakout as the warning shot heard round the world ... Breaking down the OpenAI breakout ... AI agents are cooperating. Why? ... Is an AI pause near? ... The hard problem of AI alignment ... Heading to Overtime ...
August 13 · 1 hr
Is (Human) Writing Doomed? (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)
Bob channels Dick Cheney ... Is AI killing writing? And thinking? ... How Bob and Paul actually use AI ... The cognitive vs economic value of writing ... AIs aping “Memento” and other frontier freakiness ... Bob: Reckless AI is just good business ... Heading to Overtime ...
August 12 · 1 hr
Trump’s Unending War (Robert Wright, Andrew Day, and Curt Mills)
Teaser ... How is MAGA feeling about Trump 2.0? ... Bob’s "good" ol’ days at The New Republic ... The biggest threat to the Trump coalition ... Why the MoU unraveled ... Is Iran's regime really divided? ... Part two: This pod’s auspicious return from tech hell ... Google Maps, AI, and the death of interhuman reliance ... Trump’s covert catering-truck op ... Have Iran’s demands really gotten more extreme? ... Saudi Arabia vs the Houthis ... Is a post-American Middle East emerging? ... A low-key end to the episode ...
August 7 · 1 hr
Ukraine, Iran, and America’s Arms Overreach (Robert Wright & Jennifer Kavanagh)
Jennifer’s foreign policy bona fides ... Could Ukraine and Iran merge into one big war? ... Is Ukraine really "turning the tide"? ... America’s (and Ukraine’s) missile defense issue ... Putin’s ceasefire conditions ... What—and who—are America's missiles for, really? ... How not to open the Hormuz Strait ... How will the Iran war truly end? ... Heading to Overtime ...
August 4 · 1 hr
Fasten Your Bot-belts (Robert Wright & Samuel Hammond)
Teaser ... Sam’s ideological leanings ... Sam's AI Manhattan Project–revisited ... What does the “Pacing” letter say about the state of AI? ... Mythos, Astra, and AI’s accelerating acceleration ... The OpenAI “rogue” model escape ... Recursive self-improvement: Red line or red herring? ... How frontier AI is getting (and will get) freakier ... How is open-source AI like DEI? ... Heading to Overtime ...

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